Remember Sir Rod Eddington? He was the chief executive of British Airways who, way back in 2006, prepared a report at Government’s behest on how Britain could best solve the problems of its crumbling transport infrastructure. The politicians had recognised that years of stop-start investment and an absence of coherent long-term planning had created a transport system which was in danger of becoming a positive hindrance to economic growth. Eddington told them how, in a cost-effective way, they could quite quickly and efficiently do something about it. And he pointed out that it was good business because every £1 spent on road investment delivered between £2.20 and £4.30 of benefit to the economy as a whole.

Since then, if we have moved at all it has been backwards. This morning in its annual State of the Nation Report, the Institute of Civil Engineers yet again calls for a clear strategy and urgent action to tackle our increasingly inadequate transport system.

It is all so sadly familiar. The Prime Minister bangs on about making Britain the most competitive place in the world to do business while the World Economic Forum ranks the UK just 24th in the world for the quality of its roads.

A study last year found that it is 20 times as expensive to fix potholes once they appear than it would be to prevent their occurrence with a programme of maintenance. But we have a £10.5 billion backlog of road repairs and a separate study says that 30% of the local road network is in immediate or imminent need of attention. Meanwhile, vehicle road taxation raised £33 billion back in 2010. Government spending on the entire road network is about £9.2 billion. We shouldn’t be surprised the system can barely cope. The institute does not mince its words. It says political agreement on projects, patchy investment, inadequate maintenance and the absence of clear strategic thinking were undermining the contribution transport could make to British competiveness and the quality of life.

But it also comes up with three clear proposals which surely would make things better. First, it calls for the creation of an Independent Infrastructure Commission which would be at arm’s length from government and which would think and plan to a time horizon longer than the five years of the election cycle. Given Government has admitted in recent years that it could neither be trusted to decide on competition and mergers nor to set interest rates, then it’s time it also realised it is not much good at infrastructure and handed it to a body which could do it better.

Second, it wants more regional autonomy so residents of Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and elsewhere could decide what they need. Transport for London operates independently and with increasing effectiveness, so let other cities make their decisions.

Third, it wants the Highways Agency to be given its money for five years rather than in annual lumps so it can plan ahead and do the job efficiently. Even better — though the institute does not push this — would be for the agency to issue its own bonds as Network Rail does, and raise the finance it needs.

Fourth, it wants a team which can plan ahead to provide solutions on emerging politically sensitive and complex issues. In an ideal world, the Government would realise the present system is not working and look at the institute’s proposals to see if they would improve things. One day they’ll have to do something or the country will grind to a halt. Why not now?

Will the bank overcome our scepticism? I have my doubts

It is often said that the public at large do not trust the financial services industry, though I think it’s a bit more nuanced. On an intellectual level they trust it not to run off with their money; on an emotional level they don’t trust it to give them a fair deal.

The sector has specific problems many of them of its own making but it is part of a wider problem. Society used to trust professionals — doctors, lawyers, accountants and academics or whatever — to resolve complex problems. They were the experts, they would use their judgement and society would go along with it.

These days though, respect for those professionals has diminished, their judgement is no longer accepted and society has more and more difficulty dealing with complexity, be it airport capacity, nuclear power or the optimal shape of the banking system.

This puts the Bank of England in an interesting position as Paul Tucker notes in the latest edition of Prospect. The soon-to-depart deputy Governor writes at length about the increased powers of the Bank and how these will touch every home and business in the country. But he then points out the system of banking supervision will be driven by judgement rather than rules.

And this raises an interesting question. Given society is less and less inclined to accept the judgement of other professionals, will it be ready to accept the judgement of unelected Bank officials when they appear contentious and based on information not in the public domain? And how long will the system last if they don’t?